Sci Fi Suzie

One time, when I was in high school, my boyfriend's mother asked my little brother: "What does your sister want to be when she grows up?"
"Well," he answered, furrowing his brow, "I'm pretty sure a astronaut." (He said "a astronaut" instead of "an astronaut" because he was about 6.)
My boyfriend's mother found this hilarious, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that my kid bro wasn't that far off.

Of the many ridiculous things that I hoped to one day become (gymnast, horse racer, professional dancer), astronaut was probably the most attainable. I took AP Physics in high school and it nearly killed me, and I also did not particularly enjoy Calculus, and I found lab sciences like biology and chemisty B-O-R-I-N-G. So that's when I decided to abandon the whole astronaut deal, because it appeared that the only part about it that would come naturally to me and that I would enjoy would be the whole blasting off into space thing. The calculations on how to get there (and, more pressing, get home), the experiments to be performed once we arrived there, and the writing up of reports to detail what all of that meant - bleh. But to view the earth from miles above her - this, this adventure I could handle.

I feel sj on the fear issue. I have a lot to live for, and the Challenger explosion, happening as it did when I was a wee elementary school lass, has been in the back of my mind during every subsequent blast off. If space travel was free and easy, oh, tomorrow, you'd better believe this girl would not be signing up.

But, when I'm in my nineties, when my children are grown and on their own, when I have no pets, no debts, and I've seen most of what I'd like to see around this here home planet of ours . . . well, that's the day I strap on my space suit and blast my aging body off into a new frontier. The stress of the journey may very well kill me - but what a way to die. Floating in the stars. Gazing down upon the lovely Earth that was my home and contains all that I love. Looking past it into the infinite, where my soul will soon be.

Nice.